Inundation Analysis Tool

Please click on the diamond to access additional information about that station.

Coastal storms and other meteorological phenomenon can have a significant impact on how high water levels
rise and how often. The inundation analysis program is extremely beneficial in determining the frequency
(or the occurrence of high waters for different elevations above a specified threshold) and duration (or the amount of time that the specified location is inundated by water) of observed high waters (tides).
Statistical output from these analyses can be useful in planning marsh restoration activities. Additionally,
the analyses have broader applications for the coastal engineering and mapping community, such as, ecosystem
management and regional climate change. Since these statistical outputs are station specific, use for evaluating
surrounding areas may be limited.

Products

The data input for this tool is 6-minute water level data time series and the tabulated times and heights
of the high tides over a user specified time period, relative to a desired tidal datum or user-specified datum.
The data output of this tool provides summary statistics, which includes the number of occurrences of
inundation above the threshold (events) and length of duration of inundation of each events above the
threshold elevation for a specified time period. In addition to summary statistics, graphical outputs
are provided using three plots. The first plot is a histogram of frequency of occurrence relative to
the threshold elevation, the second plot is a histogram of the frequency of duration of inundation,
and the third plot is an X-Y plot of frequency of elevation versus duration of inundation for each event.
Input data time series are presently limited to the verified data from a set of operating and historical
tide stations in the NOAA CO-OPS data base.